"Тым көп жарық нәресте көзін жояды: 60 минутта 30 пьеса"

Theater production

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes (Too Much Light or TML) was the longest running show in the history of theater in Chicago and was the only open run Off Off Broadway show in New York. The show was originally performed by the Neo Futurists, an experimental theater troupe of which creator Greg Allen was a founding member. Opening in Chicago December 2, 1988, the show ran 50 weekends of the year through 2016. As its subtitle states, the show consists of 30 original short plays performed in 60 minutes. All were written, directed, and performed by an ensemble. The plays tend to be a mixture of autobiography, performance art, and living newspaper.

Neo Futurism as an aesthetic, as well as the format of TML, are both creations of Neo Futurist Founding Director Greg Allen. The Neo Futurism aesthetic is an updating of the early 20th century Italian Futurism movement with hefty doses of Fluxus, Dada, Surrealism, Brecht, Boal, and performance art thrown in. Greg Allen came up with the name from a case study of a young autistic child who would smash light bulbs and repeat, "Too much light makes the baby go blind. Too much light makes the baby go blind." Later, when he was creating this show, the saying came back to his mind. Subsequent productions were staged by branches of the Neo Futurists in New York (1995 1998, 2004 2016), San Francisco (2013 2016), and Montreal (2007 2012). From 1990 to 2014, numerous volumes of plays from the show have been published. The book "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 90 Plays from the First 25 Years" published by Playscripts has been produced all over the world with over 100 productions a year. In November 2016, Allen revoked the Chicago Neo Futurists' rights to perform Too Much Light in a public announcement. Allen's revocation of the performance rights did not extend to the New York, San Francisco, and London branches of the Neo Futurists. However, in solidarity with the Chicago branch, the New York and San Francisco branches ended their runs of Too Much Light. All three ensembles continue to develop and perform their own two minute plays in a late night show called The Infinite Wrench, which premiered in 2017, while the London ensemble Degenerate Fox performs the similar show The Dirty Thirty. Allen subsequently founded the Detroit based UnTheatre Company, which currently continues to produce Too Much Light.